Wind-myths.
Of the myths which spring from the wind, and which may therefore be reckoned the children of Odin, by far the most interesting are those which attach to him in his part of Psycopomp, or soul-leader, and which form a part, therefore, of an immense series of tales connected with the Teutonic ideas of death as they were detailed in the last chapter. There were many reasons why these occupied a leading place in middle-age legend. The German race is naturally a gloomy or at least a thoughtful one: and upon this natural gloom and thoughtfulness the influence of their new faith acted with redoubled force, awaking men to thoughts not only of a new life but of a new death. Popular religion took as strong a hold of the darker as of the brighter aspects of Catholicism, and was busy grafting the older notions of the soul’s future state upon the fresh stock of revealed religion. Thus many of the popular notions both of heaven and hell may be discovered in the beliefs of heathen Germany. Let us, therefore, abandoning the series of myths which belong properly to the Aryan religious beliefs as given in Chapter IX. (though upon these, so numerous are they, we seem scarcely to have begun), turn to others which illustrate our last chapter. Upon one we have already touched; Odin, as chooser of the dead, hurrying through the air towards a battle-field with his troop of shield-maidens, the Valkyriur;[126] or if we like to present the simpler nature-myth, the wind bearing away the departing breath of dying men, and the clouds which he carries on with him in his course. For there is no doubt that these Valkyriur, these shield-or swan-maidens, who have the power of transforming themselves at pleasure into birds, were originally none other than the clouds; perhaps like the cattle of Indra, they were at first the clouds of sunrise. We meet with such beings elsewhere than in northern mythology. The Urvasi, whose story we have been relating just now, after the separation from her mortal husband changes herself into a bird and is found by Pururavas in this disguise, sitting with her friends the Gandhavas upon the water of a lake. This means the clouds of evening resting upon the wide blue sky. The Valkyriur themselves, when they have been married to men, often leave them, as the Indian fairy left her husband; and lest they should do so it is not safe to restore them the swan’s plumage which they wore as Valkyriur; should they again obtain their old equipment they will be almost sure to don it and desert their home to return to their old life. The Valkyriur, then, are clouds; and in so far as they appear in the legends of other nations they have no intimate connection with Odin. But when they are the clouds of sunset, and when Odin in his character of soul-bearer becomes before all things the wind of the setting sun (that breeze which so often rises just as the sun goes down, and which itself might stand for the escaping soul of the dying day), then the Valkyriur make part of an ancient myth of death. And almost all the stories of swan-maidens, or transformations into swans, which are so familiar to the ears of childhood, are related to Odin’s warrior maidens. If we notice the plot of these stories, we shall see that in them too the transformation usually takes place at sun-setting or sunrising. For instance, in the tale of the six swans in Grimm’s Household Stories,[127] the enchanted brothers of the princess can only reappear in their true shapes just one hour before sunset.
In Christian legends the gods of Asgard, subjected to the changes which inevitably follow a change of belief, became demoniacal powers; and Odin the chief god takes the place of the arch-fiend. For this part he is especially suited by his character of conductor of the souls; if he formerly led them to heaven, he now thrusts them down to hell. But so many elements came together to compose the mediæval idea of the devil that in this character the individuality of Odin is scarcely preserved. At times a wish to revive something of this personal character was felt, especially when the frequent sound of the wind awoke old memories; then Odin re-emerges as some particular fiend or damned human soul. He is the Wandering Jew, a being whose eternal restlessness well keeps up the character of the wind blowing where it listeth: or he is, as we have said, the Wild Huntsman of the Harz, and of many other places.
The name of this last being, Hackelberg, or Hackelbärend (cloak-bearer), sufficiently points him out as Odin, who in the heathen traditions had been wont to wander over the earth clad in a blue cloak,[128] and broad hat, and carrying a staff. Hackelberg, the huntsman to the Duke of Brunswick, had refused even on his death-bed the ministrations of a priest, and swore that the cry of his dogs was pleasanter to him than holy rites, and that he would rather hunt for ever upon earth than go to heaven. ‘Then,’ said the man of God, ‘thou shalt hunt on until the Day of Judgment.’ Another legend relates that Hackelberg was a wicked noble who was wont to hunt on Sundays as on other days, and (here comes in the popular version) to impress the poor peasants to aid him. One day he was joined suddenly by two horsemen. One was mild of aspect, but the other was grim and fierce, and from his horse’s mouth and nostril breathed fire. Hackelberg turned then from his good angel, and went on with his wild chase, and now, in company of the fiend, he hunts and will hunt till the last day. He is called in Germany the hel-jäger, ‘hell-hunter.’ The peasants hear his ‘hoto’ ‘hutu,’ as the storm-wind rushes past their doors, and if they are alone upon the hillside they hide their faces while the hunt goes by. The white owl, Totosel, is a nun who broke her vows, and now mingles her ‘tutu’ (towhoo) with his ‘holoa.’ He hunts, accompanied by two dogs (the two dogs of Yama), in heaven, all the year round, save upon the twelve nights between Christmas and Twelfth-night.[129] If any door is left open upon the night when Hackelberg goes by, one of the dogs will run in and lie down in the ashes of the hearth, nor will any power be able to make him stir. During all the ensuing year there will be trouble in that household, but when the year has gone round and the hunt comes again, the unbidden guest will rise from his couch, and, wildly howling, rush forth to join his master. Strangely distorted, there lurks in this part of the story a ray of the Vedic sleep-god Sârameyas.
‘Destroyer of sickness, guard of the house, oh, thou who takest all shapes, be to us a peace-bringing friend.’
The Valkyriur in their turn are changed by the mediæval spirit into witches. The Witches’ Sabbath, the old beldames on broomsticks riding through the air, to hold their revels on the Brocken, reproduce the swan-maidens hurrying to join the flight of Odin. And, again, changed once more, ‘Old Mother Goose’ is but a more modern form of a middle-age witch, when the thought of witches no longer strikes terror. And while we are upon the subject of witches it may be well to recall how the belief in witches has left its trace in our word ‘nightmare.’ Mara was throughout Europe believed to be the name of a very celebrated witch somewhere in the North, though the exact place of her dwelling was variously stated. It is highly probable that this name Mara was once a byname of the death-goddess Hel, and it may be etymologically connected with the name of the sea (Meer), the sea being, as we have seen, according to one set of beliefs, the home of the soul.
Odin, or a being closely analogous with him, reappears in the familiar tale of the Pied Piper of Hameln, he who, when the whole town of Hameln suffered from a plague of rats and knew not how to get rid of them, appeared suddenly—no one knew from whence—and professed himself able to charm the pest away by means of the secret magic of his pipe. But it is a profanation to tell the enchanted legend otherwise than in the enchanted language of Browning:—
‘Into the street the piper stept,
Smiling first a little smile,
As if he knew what magic slept
In his quiet pipe the while;
Then like a musical adept
To blow the pipe his lips he wrinkled.’
Then the townsfolk, freed from their burden, refused the piper his promised reward, and scornfully chased him from the town. On the 26th of June he was seen again, but this time (Mr. Browning has not incorporated this little fact) fierce of aspect and dressed like a huntsman, yet still blowing upon the magic pipe.